Gendered power relations and sexual harassment in Antarctic science and remote fieldwork in the age of #MeToo
Antarctica is a remote, historically masculine place. It is also a workplace, and the humaninteractions there are connected to power structures and gendered expectations. Today,nearly 60% of early career polar researchers are women (Strugnell et al. 2016). However,women in Science, Technology, Engin...
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| Format: | Conference Object |
| Language: | English |
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University of Melbourne
2020
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| Online Access: | https://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/cwl/conferences/gender-and-sexuality-at-work#proceedings http://ecite.utas.edu.au/139587 |
| Summary: | Antarctica is a remote, historically masculine place. It is also a workplace, and the humaninteractions there are connected to power structures and gendered expectations. Today,nearly 60% of early career polar researchers are women (Strugnell et al. 2016). However,women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) are 3.5times more likely than men to experience sexual harassment during fieldwork (Clancy et al.2014) making questions of safety, power, and harassment pertinent. Gender equityinitiatives coupled with #MeToo have provided new platforms for reporting sexualharassment and challenging problematic research cultures which position science asmeritocratic and gender-neutral. Yet, the impact of #MeToo in Antarctic science is uneven.The termination of Prof. David Marchant is widely cited as evidence that #MeToo ispositively affecting Antarctic science. We argue it is problematic to focus on individual casesat the expense of the wider culture. We examine the complex historical (e.g. genderedinteractions with the Antarctic landscape), cultural (e.g. identity politics), and relational (e.g.gendered power dynamics) tensions underpinning recent #MeToo revelations in Antarcticscience with a view to providing more nuanced approaches to structural change. |
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